The ride from the hospital to what was apparently "home" held my attention more than you'd expect.
Before the accident—before all this—I'd only ever been to two states. Never made it to New York. Never saw the skyline in person or felt the weight of the city pressing in from every direction. My life wasn't tragic or anything, but let's be real: growing up broke meant vacations were never part of the plan. We lived comfortably enough to survive—not explore.
Now here I was, riding through Queens like a tourist trapped in someone else's skin.
May was talking. I caught the cadence of her voice more than the words—soft, warm, the kind of tone people use when they're trying to make someone feel safe. I think she said something about picking up soup, or maybe stopping by the pharmacy. Possibly both. I wasn't really listening.
It was hard to focus on anything but the city outside the window. Brick buildings, tangled fire escapes, rows of parked cars lined up like metallic dominoes. I'd seen Queens before—in movies, in games—but this was different. This was real. And it was my hometown now, apparently.
Whether I wanted it or not.
"You alright, Pete? You're awfully quiet back there," Ben called out, his voice cutting through the silence. It jolted me a little—like being pulled up from underwater. It's a sensation I'm unfortunately starting to get used to.
Getting used to responding to that name is going to be difficult.
"Hmm?" I blinked, dragging my eyes away from a row of corner shops we'd just passed. For a second, I wasn't even sure I'd heard him right.
May glanced over her shoulder with a warmth I wasn't sure I deserved.
"You're quiet, dear."
"Yeah—sorry. Just... tired," I said, defaulting to the universal excuse for emotional weirdness. It came out easy enough. And it wasn't exactly a lie, either.
Ben gave a small nod in the rearview mirror, eyes flicking back to the road.
"That's fair. You've certainly earned the right to be."
That was one way to put it. You've earned the right to be tired by
nearly dying, Pete.
Yeah. Calling myself that still feels weird. The name buzzed through my nerves like static—familiar, but wrong. It's hard to describe, other than this: the name fits like a jacket left behind on a hook—your size, maybe even your color, but someone else wore it first. Someone who had a life. Friends. Memories. A future... and now it was mine.
I think Ben noticed how stiff I'd gone, because after a pause, he cleared his throat gently and said, "We'll be home shortly. Then you can get some rest in your own bed."
Your own bed.
Right. That somehow made it weirder.
From the little interaction I'd had so far with Ben, May, and even Dr. Halperin, one thing was already crystal clear:
Peter still had the Parker luck.
The kind that wasn't just bad—it was cosmic. Stubborn. The universe-on-hard-mode kind of luck.
He'd been in and out of hospitals more times than anyone could probably count. Scrapes, broken bones, sickness—maybe worse. I didn't have the full picture, but it didn't take much to start connecting dots. The way May's voice had trembled just a bit when she mentioned rest. The way Ben kept glancing at me like he was checking to make sure I was still breathing.
And then there was Dr. Halperin—Peter's family doctor, apparently. That explained the familiarity in her voice, the concern that felt a little too practiced. Not the kind of worry you give a stranger.
No. That was the kind of worry that only came from watching a kid get hurt too often.
What concerned me most was the conversation I'd accidentally eavesdropped on between Ben and May.
Even in a different body, my uncanny ability to overhear stuff I was never supposed to hear had apparently made the jump with me. Which is hilarious, considering half the time if I'm trying to pay attention, I can't tell what the hell people are saying.
But that night in the hospital, their voices carried. Quiet, but clear. May had mentioned an illness Peter had when he was younger— something serious enough that it still haunted her. And now, she was worried the coma might be connected to it.
That's the part that's been gnawing at me.
Dr. Halperin brought up the spider's venom as a possible factor in my amnesia, (how the hell they came up with that, I don't know, but I'm not complaining) but they keep talking like it hadn't happened.
I hate being treated like I'm not in the room, and it's worse now that I'm in Peter's shoes, because I feel like a spectator. I sigh under my breath, looking back to the street. I need to relax some.
Ben and May are just worried about their nephew, and I'm playing catch up. Right now, I just need to get my bearings and settle in until I can figure out what the hell is going on. I do have a plan, but it's not as ambitious as some of my friends would be. Some would be planning on attaining godhood, but that's not me.
No, I'm going for a simpler route to start things off. Step One: I need to learn more about Peter.
If I'm taking over his life, I need to know more about him. Ben thinks I'm going to get rest when I go in my room, but I'm going to be digging into Peter's... my past.
Step Two: Figure out who Peter's friend group is.
From the versions of Peter Parker I am familiar with, I'm looking at about four to five names being on the list: Harry Osborn, Mary Jane Watson, Gwen Stacy, Ned Leeds, and Flash Thompson. Flash is generally more frenemy than friend, especially in high school, but I'm not removing the possibility of this world playing out different
Step Three: Figure out what kind of Marvel universe I'm in.
That's going to tell me how bad things could potentially get. Is this a grounded one, or do the Celestials show up on Tuesdays? The stakes depend entirely on what kind of cosmic circus I've landed in.
Step Four—arguably the most important if I want to survive whatever's coming: I need to figure out how to make web shooters.
I'm willing to bet I don't have organic webbing in the cards, so if I do start developing powers, I'll need gear. That means I need to figure out the web fluid formula and create the web shooters from scratch.
Peter might be a science nerd, but I'm not. I wasn't a great student, so unless I'm lucky enough to inherit his brains, I've got some catching up to do. Thankfully, when it's important and something that catches my attention, I'm a quick learner.
And let's be honest: figuring out how to swing between buildings like a human bungee cord? Yeah. That's got my full attention.
The car slowed as we turned off the main road, slipping into a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood that looked like it hadn't changed since the seventies—maybe even earlier. Every house had its own flavor of wear and tear, like they were aging gracefully into the background of someone else's story.
And then we pulled up to the house.
It was a two-story place with faded yellow siding and white trim that had long since surrendered to a kind of soft gray grime. The front porch sagged ever so slightly at the left corner, like it had a bum knee, and the roof tiles looked like they'd seen one too many Northeastern winters. But the big bay window out front still had a charm to it, framed with old lace curtains that swayed gently in the breeze coming off the street.
It looked... lived-in. The kind of house that felt real. No pre-fab cookie-cutter suburbia facade.
The front yard was modest but kept—patchy grass that had clearly been fought for and won, a narrow path of cracked concrete leading up to the steps. A weather-worn bike leaned against the porch railing, rust nipping at the frame. A wind chime made from old silverware clinked quietly near the screen door, dancing lazily in the breeze. For some reason, that detail stuck with me. It felt like something May made.
It wasn't the kind of house you'd stop to admire. But looking at it from the backseat, heart still weirdly rattling in my chest, it felt like a place someone could heal in.
"Home sweet home," Ben said as he put the car in park, the engine ticking gently as it cooled.
May turned back to me, offering a soft smile that didn't quite reach her eyes—but not for lack of trying.
"You remember it, Peter?" she asked carefully, like the answer might either make her day or break her heart.
I swallowed, glancing back at the house.
Lie or truth?
"...It looks familiar," I said, and technically that wasn't false. I'd seen versions of it in comics, movies—hell, I knew what this was supposed to be. But standing here, seeing it with a real sky above and the scent of cut grass in the air?
That was new.
May's smile softened, and Ben opened his door with a grunt. The moment shattered as the cool air outside rushed in, and I climbed out onto the cement.
I'm looking up at the house a bit too long when Ben places a hand on my shoulder, smiling brightly.
"Come on, slugger. I bet you're hungry."
Right on cue, my stomach let out a low, gurgling betrayal that echoed just enough in the quiet street to be embarrassing.
"...Traitor," I muttered under my breath.
It's only now that I realize... I still haven't gotten that damn burger I wanted. May, ever the MVP, had managed to sneak me a Pop-Tart in her purse—bless her—but that was more emotional support than nutritional sustenance.
Ben chuckled at the sound and gave my shoulder a squeeze.
"We've got leftovers inside, or I can whip something up. Nothing fancy, but better than hospital food."
He started up the walkway, and I followed, my legs suddenly aware of just how not okay today had been. My joints ached like I'd run a marathon, and everything inside me felt like it was running on fumes and adrenaline. The worst part of all of this was that I hadn't done much today beyond getting discharged.
Still... stepping up toward that weathered porch made something click. The creak of the boards underfoot, the way the house seemed to exhale in the breeze—it grounded me. Like a glitch in the simulation finally corrected itself. For the first time since I woke up as Peter, I felt like myself again.
"Can you cook a couple burgers?" I asked, my voice scratchy but hopeful.
Ben looked over his shoulder with an easy grin. "I'll start the grill."
The front door shut behind us with a soft click, and I caught the low rustle of Ben slipping off his jacket. He tossed it casually over the back of a kitchen chair like it belonged there. The air inside was warm, with a coziness that you couldn't fake with scented candles and throw pillows. It smelled faintly like lemon cleaner and something sweet from earlier—maybe the remnants of a pie May had made, or cookies from a neighbor. I didn't know. Either way it was nice.
May's hand gently touched my elbow. "Let's get you upstairs, sweetheart."
I nod, but I'm barely paying attention again. My eyes were already drifting around the space as she started to lead me toward the stairs.
The living room was sunlit and soft, the furniture worn but in good condition. There was a quilt tossed over the arm of the couch, and an old lamp beside it with a crack in the base that someone had carefully glued back together.
Then there were the photos that caught my attention.
They were everywhere. Lining the hallway, clustered on the wall of the staircase—each one, a snapshot of a life I was supposed to remember.
One frame caught my attention—a young Peter, probably five or six, cheeks puffed out as he blew into a birthday cake, frosting smeared at the corner of his mouth. Ben was leaned in over his shoulder in the background, caught mid-laugh, eyes crinkled with joy. His hair was darker, lacking any sign of gray then.
Next to it, a picture of Peter riding a bicycle, arms wobbling, teeth clenched in determination. The background was slightly blurred, but I could make out May cheering from the porch. He must've just learned to ride. I felt something hitch in my chest as I remembered my first time on a bike. I remember falling, skinning my knee, and crying like a baby. I was lucky I didn't break a bone with how fragile I was back then. I think that was one of the reasons I never actually learned to ride a bike, and my lack of a center of balance. The picture though, felt like it could have actually been my first time riding... in that regard, Peter was luckier than me.
I glanced toward the kitchen, where Ben was rustling through a drawer, probably looking for a long lighter to fire up the grill.
May was already halfway up the stairs, motioning for me to follow.
"Come on, honey. I want to make sure your room's just the way you remember."
As I followed, more pictures met me on the way up. A younger May and Ben stood together on a bridge in one—arms looped around each other, faces glowing with the kind of love you don't see much anymore. I paused for a moment in front of it, taking it in. I hoped someday I could have something like that. It reminded me of the photo of my grandparents when they went to New York one summer. They'd stopped in front of a waterfall and took a photo. It was the one I got etched onto a necklace. Always and forever...
Ben and May reminded me of them so much that it physically hurt.
Further up, a larger frame hung above the landing. It was a family portrait—Peter, May, and Ben all standing together in matching sweaters, the kind people wear just for the photo and regret immediately afterward. Peter was maybe ten or eleven, skinny with a big smile. He looked... happy.
The one thing I notice more than anything else is what wasn't on the walls. There were no photos of Richard and Mary Parker. No baby photos with them. No framed vacations or goofy Christmas cards. That was the running theme in Peter's life across every version I knew: the people who brought him into the world were never the ones who raised him.
I suppose I know what that feels like, after all. I didn't know my father until I was eleven, and even then, he was a stranger. That's part of the reason I stand by the belief that family isn't just whose blood runs in your veins, it's the ones who are willing to stand with you when nobody else would.
Ben and May were there when it mattered. They were there when Peter cried himself to sleep at five years old, confused about why his parents weren't coming back. It hits me as I reach the door to Peter's room. Why do I know Peter was only five when they left? I shouldn't know that.
Not unless I was there, but I wasn't.
So why do I remember it like I was there?
I can feel the weight of the silence in that bedroom. The way the nightlight cast soft shadows on the ceiling. The muffled sobs he tried to bury in his pillow, too young to understand why the world was falling apart.
I remember the pajama pants with dinosaurs on them. The way he hugged that worn-out teddy bear, missing half an ear. The way May's hand smoothed over his hair, slow and calming. The way Ben stood in the doorway, helpless, one hand clutching the frame like it was the only thing keeping him from falling in, too.
I shouldn't remember any of that. That scares the hell out of me.
It's not just empathy. It's not imagination or educated guesses... it's an actual piece of Peter's life.
As May opened the door for me, I stepped into Peter's room like I was crossing a line I wasn't sure I had the right to cross. Not because it was off-limits—May had waved me in without hesitation— but because this space felt private in a way that made me instinctively tread lighter.
It was small. That was the first thing I noticed. Not cramped, but definitely modest. A single window faced the street, half-covered by blinds tilted just enough to let in the overcast morning light.
A desk sat under it, cluttered with notebooks and paperbacks and a mess of pens—some with caps, some chewed down at the ends. A laptop rested in the middle, lid closed, the corners dinged up from years of use. There were a few stickers on the casing, most of them curling at the edges: NASA, a faded Mets logo, a couple of scuffed science puns only a high schooler would think were clever.
The bed was unmade, in the way that only a teenager's bed can be —blanket half-pulled up, pillow pushed against the wall like it had been used to prop up a back during a long night of reading or scrolling or thinking too hard. The sheets were plain—pale blue and softened by time, with a frayed edge visible near the foot. No cartoon characters, no brand names. Just fabric that looked like it had been through a lot of nights both good and bad.
A tall, leaning bookshelf took up the opposite wall, stuffed tight with paperbacks that ran the gamut from science fiction to nonfiction to the occasional weathered classic. A copy of Fahrenheit 451 had clearly been read more than once—its spine was warped and its corners curled like old toast. Right beside it, The Martian leaned on a thick high school chemistry textbook, bookmarked with a train ticket. On the bottom shelf, a stack of yellowing National Geographics towered over a binder full of loose-leaf notes, corners sticking out at odd angles.
Above the shelf, taped with peeling Scotch tape, were a few small drawings—nothing polished, just scraps of printer paper with sketches in graphite and pen. A rocketship, messy and a little lopsided. A doodle of the New York skyline with tiny stick figures and arrows labeled things like "bagel cart" and "rush hour."
The closet door was cracked open, and inside I spotted a few stacked shoeboxes, one labeled School Stuff in Sharpie, another Wires & Junk, and one with just a smiley face drawn on the lid. A pair of beat-up Converse sat askew next to them—one untied, one without a lace. Nearby, a dark green hoodie was slumped over a rolling chair, the fabric bunched and sleeves tangled like it had been shrugged off mid-thought.
There weren't many decorations. Nothing that looked like it was meant for show. No trophies, no ribbons, no posters of bands or celebrities or sports stars. No selfies taped to mirrors. No lights strung up to make it aesthetic.
It felt like my room, believe it or not. Minus the comic and anime posters I had littered around my room, the photos of my cousins, me and my mom, my childhood dog that I lost when I was seven or eight, and the collection of funko pops I'd bought over the course of four years.
On the nightstand, a small alarm clock blinked the wrong time. A copy of Of Mice and Men rested beneath it, dog-eared halfway through. Beside that, a photo frame faced the bed. It held an image of Peter with Ben and May—Peter still young, maybe eight, grinning with a missing front tooth while Ben stood behind him with one hand on his shoulder and the other holding up two ice cream cones. May leaned in from the side, her hair windblown, her eyes half-closed from laughing. It wasn't a posed photo. Someone had snapped it while they were in motion, and that made it better somehow.
I wondered who took the photo, but I figured it wasn't important.
I looked around again, slower this time.
There were things here that told you who Peter was, like the way the books had been read and re-read. The frayed sleeves of the hoodie. The crooked stack of school notebooks with bent covers. It scared me how quickly I wanted this to feel like mine. Like maybe if I stayed quiet long enough, the room would forget Peter and just become mine instead. A few tweaks to make this place my own, but overall... I liked it here.
May had been standing there in the doorway for a minute, watching me intently as I examined everything. By the time I turned around, I could tell she knew I didn't remember the room and its contents. I gave her a soft smile, barely enough to curl the corners of my lips. I wasn't sure what to say.
"Dr. Halperin said it might take a while for everything to start coming back..." She said it softly, like someone whispering to a ghost they weren't sure was still listening.
"May..." I call her name softly. She raises her eyes to meet mine, and for a brief moment, I can't help but hesitate. I want to ask a question, but I'm not sure how to ask it without making her feel worse. That memory of Peter reeling from his parents leaving... it's itching at the back of my head. "Are my parents alive?"
She doesn't answer right away. The silence stretches—thick, uncomfortable. Like we're both waiting for the same elevator that just refuses to show up. May's eyes flicked to a photo on the dresser— Peter on Ben's shoulders at Coney Island, cotton candy in hand, wind in his hair. She didn't cry, but her throat bobbed once like she was swallowing a wave. Her gaze drops to the floor, and I can see her thumb rubbing at her palm, slow and nervous.
"They..." She finally replied, her voice uneven. "They died. A long time ago. Plane crash, down in South America. Your dad was on assignment for Oscorp. Your mom went with him."
She says it gently, like she's trying not to crush something fragile.
And here's the weird part—I feel something. Not like my grief. Not the grief of the guy who died in a Cadillac a few days ago. This is something else–like a ripple in the back of my skull. A sensation that shouldn't be mine, but clings anyway. A boy reeling from abandonment. A door closing. A pair of silhouettes walking away and never coming back. It's not a memory I own... but it still stings like one.
"I don't remember them," I say before I can stop myself. It's true. I mean, I remember that feeling—Peter's—but not their faces. Not their voices. Not the way they laughed or fought or how it felt to be their kid.
May's eyes soften like she gets it. Like she's seen that fog in someone else before.
"They loved you. I want you to know that." Her voice wavers, but she powers through. "They were good people. Brilliant. Brave. They
would've been so proud."
I nod, but it feels like I'm nodding for someone else. I feel like a trespasser at a funeral, mourning ghosts I never got to meet.
"Thanks," I smile. "Can you let me know when the food's ready? I want to get into something a little more comfortable."
May hesitated at the doorway, eyes flicking once more around the room before settling back on me. Whatever she saw on my face— grief, confusion, that aching loss that wasn't mine but lived in me now—she didn't try to explain it away. She just gave a small, gentle nod and stepped back.
"I'll call you when it's ready," she said. "Take your time, sweetheart." The door clicked shut behind her, and I was alone.
For the first time since waking up in that hospital bed, I didn't feel like someone was watching. No nurse with a clipboard. No kind-eyed doctor prodding gently at the edges of my identity. No Ben, trying to act casual but clearly watching me like a hawk for signs of recognition. No May, tiptoeing around my confusion like she might scare it into hiding.
Just me...
I walked over to the desk and slipped off the glasses. The world didn't blur so much as soften—like the lens I'd been looking through had vanished, leaving everything just slightly less sharp, less clinical. I set the glasses down carefully beside the laptop, next to a pen with its cap long gone and a scrawled sticky note that read Chem Quiz Thursday — ugh.
Then I peeled off the clothes.
They felt like someone else's skin—too stiff, too clean, like a costume for a role I hadn't auditioned for. That's something I'd need
to change too, if I could get the money to do so. Peter's clothes were never fancy. A lot of what he had were hand-me-downs and Good Will purchases.
I don't mind seeing Peter wear geeky outfits, as long as it's actually him wearing them. It's not my personal taste. The moment I get a chance, I'm going to get something more personalized. Nothing 'dark and edgy' by any means, but I do like darker clothing.
I dropped them into a small hamper tucked between the closet and the desk, then turned to the wardrobe.
The doors creaked as I opened them. I smile as my point is proven more by its contents. Inside was a modest row of clothes: T-shirts in every shade of faded; button-downs for school presentations, probably; a couple of hoodies worn thin at the cuffs. Pants, mostly jeans, some with knees blown out.
I dug around a little until I found a pair of sweatpants—dark gray, soft to the touch, drawstring a bit frayed at the end. I pulled them on and found a T-shirt to go with it—a heather blue one with a slightly stretched collar and the word "PHYSICS" printed in cracked white lettering across the chest. It was a little loose, like Peter had either outgrown it or liked the oversized feel. Either way, it draped over my frame with a weird comfort I didn't expect.
Though, I would have opted for a tank top.
Once I shut the door and turned around, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the dresser.
It was Peter, of course. His face. His angles. His messy hair that needed a cut but somehow made sense the way it was. But without the glasses, in the casual clothes, barefoot on the wooden floor... he looked more like a blank slate.
A pause in the story. A kid caught mid-sentence.
I didn't look like I belonged in a hospital bed anymore. I looked like someone that was home from school early, maybe. Someone who should be finishing an essay or scrolling through a phone.
I stepped away from the mirror and wandered to the bookshelf again. Ran my fingers across the dog-eared spines. The Fahrenheit 451 paperback leaned against its neighbor like it needed the support, and I couldn't help but mutter under my breath, "We burn books, then ask why the world is dark."
Peter had highlighted that line. I don't know how I know that. I just... do.
My hand hovered over the train ticket stuck in The Martian. I traced the edge without pulling it out. For a second, I wanted to open it, to flip through the pages and see where Peter had stopped, what notes he might've scribbled in the margins. But I held back. It felt too intimate. Like reading someone's diary.
I moved back to the bed and sat down. The mattress gave beneath me with a soft sigh, springs adjusting to a familiar weight they didn't realize wasn't here anymore.
I leaned back until my spine met the mattress in full, legs still hanging off the edge. And that was the weird part. It didn't hurt. No strain across my lower back, no pressure point between my shoulders, no fidgeting to find the right angle just to breathe easy.
It should've felt like a luxury, but mostly it just felt...off. Comfortable in a way my old body never was, and that comfort carried a kind of grief in it. Like the ache I didn't have anymore was still echoing in my memory, waiting to remind me who I wasn't.
But I could get used to this. The thought came quieter than expected, like it didn't want to draw too much attention to itself.
I used to carry myself like a truck in a narrow lane, always a little too much for the space I was in. Beds creaked, plastic chairs tested their
limits, and my spine was a daily complaint after a long shift. Now, though? I could lie flat and breathe easily. The springs beneath me didn't groan... they adapted to my frame.
Yeah, not bad at all.
"Peter!" came May's voice from downstairs. "Food's ready."
"Be down in a second!" I called back, climbing to my feet. I could already smell the burgers, and all I could think was... finally.
I grabbed my glasses and was out the door a few seconds later.
That evening, I sat cross-legged on Peter's bedroom floor, back propped against the foot of the bed, laptop perched on the comforter beside me. The screen glowed dim in the low light, its fan humming softly, the only real sound in the room apart from the faint traffic buzz outside the window.
The folders were...dense. "School Projects," "Ideas," "Blueprints," "Chem Notes," "Photography," "Personal," "Scrap." Each one packed with subfolders nested like Russian dolls. I picked one at random —"Photography"—and opened a folder labeled "People."
What I found wasn't filtered or curated. There weren't any posed Instagram shots or group photos angled to suggest a more exciting life. These were raw. Street-level, almost. Black-and-white candids of students on school steps. A girl with a skateboard laughing with her head thrown back. A guy crouched by his locker, tying his shoes. Half of them probably didn't even know they'd been captured.
It took me about three minutes of skimming through the photos to realize there weren't a lot of selfies. Hardly any photos of Peter himself, except ones taken by accident—his reflection in a window, a mirrored surface catching him while he was adjusting the shot. A ghost boy with soft eyes and a tired hoodie, always slightly out of frame.
I didn't realize how lonely it looked until I started flipping faster, searching for someone else—anyone else—who appeared more than once. Familiar faces. Patterns.
And then I saw him. Curled up in a booth at a greasy diner, head tilted back mid-laugh, Peter across from him. A tall kid, well-dressed. Too polished to be from Midtown's usual crowd. I clicked deeper.
Harry.
There wasn't a last name on the files, but it didn't take much to connect the dots. It was Harry Osborn.
Rooftop hangouts with textbooks splayed open and soda cans kicked to the side. A blurry photo of the two of them on a subway platform, Peter catching Harry mid-ramble with an expression that screamed "are-you-seriously-taking-a-picture-right-now?" The kind of look that only happens between best friends.
And then Halloween. Harry in a black cape and cheap plastic fangs, clearly phoning it in. And Peter next to him in a...
Oh my god, he didn't!
He was wearing a white wig, oversized lab coat, and taped-on mustache that looked like it'd been cut out of notebook paper. Albert Einstein. Of course it was. That's fantastically on brand for Pete.
I actually laughed. A real, sudden, sharp laugh. And then it caught in my throat.
Because even in the goofy getup, Peter didn't take up much space. He stood slightly off-center in the shot, like he wasn't sure he was supposed to be in it at all. The smile on his face was real, yeah—but shy. Like joy that had to ask for permission to exist.
God, he was trying so hard.
The kind of kid who put real effort into a joke costume and crossed his fingers someone would notice. The kind of kid who took candids of his best friend laughing, but almost never showed up in the frame himself.
I know that feeling.
Better than I'd like to admit.
I used to be the tagalong. The friend with the busted wallet, too broke to cover even my own slice of pizza. My friends never made me feel bad about it—at least not out loud. They'd just pay, shrug it off, tell me they were happy I came. That it didn't matter. But it mattered to me. Every time.
Because when you grow up worrying you take up too much space, even kindness can feel like pity.
Looking at Peter... I wondered how often he felt like that. How often he let himself be invited, but never believed he was wanted.
And how many times he left his own name out of the frame, because maybe he thought the photo was better that way.
I cleared my throat, breaking the silence that had settled over me like a thin fog. My fingers drifted back to the photos, flipping through them with the slow, careful rhythm of someone trying not to disturb a sleeping secret. Harry's face began to fade—less and less in each snapshot, until it was like he was slowly vanishing from the story altogether.
I paused.
Was Harry no longer in Pete's life? Did he move? Did they have a falling out? I could go ask Ben or May, but they're probably lying down now and I don't want to disturb them.
I blinked, and something new caught my eye. Where Harry had faded out, someone else had started to appear. In photo after photo, he was there—always with Peter. But not in the background. He was pulling Peter into the shot, literally. Arm wrapped around his neck in that big-brother way, tugging him in with a grin like nah, man, you're part of this too.
He wore a classic Midtown letterman jacket—the lime green body and white sleeves, a big "M" stitched proudly on the chest. His hair was shaved close on the sides with a sharp fade, and the top was kept longer, slicked back just enough to look effortlessly cool without trying too hard. The guy looked too friendly to be Flash Thompson.
Who is this guy?
I squinted at the name tag clipped to one folder. Lonnie Lincoln.
Wait—Lonnie? THE Lonnie Lincoln?
As in... Lonnie Lincoln, the guy who grows up to become Tombstone? The ashen-skinned enforcer with a voice like crushed gravel and a rap sheet that reads like a Bond villain's resume?
My eyes darted back to the photos. He didn't look like a future crime boss. Not here. No dead-eyed stare. No pale skin like weathered stone. He just looked like... a dude. Big, sure. Broad shoulders. But his grin lit up the whole photo. There was kindness in it. He was laughing in most of them. And Peter—Peter was smiling back.
Not politely. Genuinely.
Like maybe, just maybe, someone had finally refused to let him shrink.
What the hell was Peter doing hanging out with Lonnie Lincoln? Or maybe the better question was...
What kind of Lonnie Lincoln was this?
With that, I had to stop looking at the photos. I knew where my brain was going, and it wasn't helpful. Jumping straight to "future supervillain" was a fast track to making bad assumptions. People change. People aren't their worst-case scenario waiting to happen. At least, not always.
No—I needed to focus. Something more grounded. More current. If I was going to understand this world, I had to start looking at the big players. The ones who shaped New York from the top down.
First name on the list? Easy.
Mostly because he has a nasty habit of becoming a massive problem for Peter Parker, whenever Peter finally becomes Spider- Man.
Wilson Fisk.
I typed the name into the search bar, hit enter. The results made my chest tighten.
He wasn't just active.
He was the Mayor.
The actual Mayor of New York.
Fuck me.
No, like seriously... why the fuck is he the Mayor? I stared at the search results, hoping I'd misread something.
Nope.
There it was, bold as sin and twice as smug:
WILSON FISK SWORN IN FOR SECOND TERM AS MAYOR.
FISK ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES NEW CRIME INITIATIVE.
COMMUNITY LEADERS PRAISE FISK'S "CLEAN STREETS" CAMPAIGN.
Clean streets?
Are you kidding me?
Don't tell me he's playing the dutiful New Yorker now—shaking hands at ribbon cuttings, posing next to playground renovations, flashing that thousand-pound smile while reporters eat out of his palm. All while he's still gutting the city from the inside like a damn butcher in a $10,000 suit.
Okay, I just chastised myself over assuming Lonnie would be a villain later in life, but this is Wilson Fisk! I don't think he's capable of being a good guy in any continuity. This isn't just bad, this is a nightmare waiting to unfold.
Because if he's still Kingpin behind the scenes—and let's be honest, of course he is—then that means he's got the whole machine at his fingertips. Cops, courts, contracts, media... all of it. Everything Peter might one day have to fight against? This guy already owns it. Wrapped up in a nice, legally-sanctioned bow.
Okay, okay, okay... calm down.
One thing at a time. Just get your bearings, remember?
You're not swinging through Manhattan rooftops yet. You don't have spider-sense, webs, or a tragic backstory involving someone whispering "great power" on their deathbed.
No need to assume you're going to be fist-fighting a sumo wrestler's natural predator.
Deep breath.
So. Wilson Fisk is the Mayor. Not great. But technically not my problem... yet.
Let's move down the list.
Pete's arch-nemesis.
Norman Osborn.
I typed the name in and winced, like the words might bite me.
And what do you know? They kinda did.
Norman Osborn: billionaire industrialist, CEO of Oscorp—former CEO, apparently. The headline reads:
OSBORN STEPS BACK FROM OSCORP AMID ILLNESS – SMYTHE TO SERVE AS COMPANY SPOKESPERSON
My stomach dipped.
Norman was sick. That... actually tracked. This was more Amazing Spider-Man than Raimi-verse, and in this timeline, Norman's not blowing up scientists or threatening Thanksgiving dinner—he's busy dying. Slowly. Probably painfully. Which should've made me feel a little sympathy.
Instead, all it did was set off alarms in the back of my brain. Something about this felt like the first note of a much darker song.
Because if Norman's out, that means someone else is holding the leash at Oscorp.
And that someone is Allistaire Smythe.
The name alone gave me goosebumps. I clicked deeper. Photos. Press conferences. Him, standing stiff at a podium in that weirdly symmetrical suit, like he was generated by an AI trained exclusively on images of "respectable corporate villains."
Oscorp to Lead Tech Initiative in Collaboration with Mayor Fisk's Clean City Plan.
And there it was. My two least favorite puzzle pieces, shaking hands.
Allistaire freaking Smythe. The man behind the Spider Slayers. In some versions, he's just a creepy robotics genius. In others, he's a sociopathic zealot with a bug up his ass about vigilantes.
I'd be fine with "creepy robotics genius," honestly. But if he builds the Slayers here, and they're anything like the ones I remember? Sleek, silent, city-patrolling arachnid death machines?
Bad application.
Especially if they want me dead. Nope. Not loving that future.
I sat back, rubbing my face with both hands. Somewhere between the Kingpin in a mayor's sash and Spider Terminators on the skyline, my whole body had started buzzing with that quiet, rising dread, as if it was telling me 'good luck, sucker.'
But there was still one name I had to check.
Not Fisk. Not Osborn. Not the latest rogue tech billionaire building anti-hero drones in his garage.
Someone else.
The Black Cat.
Out of everyone Peter had ever crossed paths with—friend, foe, flirt —she was the one I couldn't stop thinking about. There was something about their dynamic I'd always loved. That tension. That teasing chaos. The fact that she never tiptoed around him. She didn't ask Peter Parker to be smaller. She flirted with the idea that he could be bigger.
I was a sucker for girls like Felicia, but I'm not aiming for her to be my better half or even a person to add to a harem. She pushes Peter, and I could use someone who does that.
So, I typed it: The Black Cat. The search results were...dusty.
Not in the usual "scrubbed from the net" kind of way. More like the digital version of a forgotten case file in the back of a locked cabinet.
Most of the entries were old. Really old.
Mentions in crime blogs. Buried police reports. Whispers on conspiracy forums.
"High-end jewel theft in Tribeca. Police say it bears resemblance to the 'Black Cat' string of robberies from the late 90s..."
"Copycat burglaries dismissed by NYPD—no confirmed sightings since the Black Cat's last known heist, seventeen years ago."
"Some say he retired. Others think he vanished for good." He?
I blinked and scrolled back. Most of the reports didn't even reference the Black Cat as a woman. One line stood out in a crime blog from 2008. The Black Cat was never caught, disappearing without a trace seventeen years ago.
Hopefully that meant Felicia wasn't active yet. Maybe she hadn't put on the suit yet. Maybe she didn't even know what she was meant to become...
I can live with that.
I could deep dive into all my potential enemies for weeks, but there's a more tantalizing, exciting concept creeping into my mind now. What about the heroes?
I mean, yeah, doomscrolling my way through a villain lineup straight out of Nightmare Starter Pack Monthly is fun—if your definition of "fun" includes quiet existential dread and a strong desire to live under your bed, but seeing a hero feels more appropriate at the moment.
And that's when a new name slipped into my brain like a song you haven't heard in years but somehow still know every word to.
Tony Stark.
I typed it slowly, like I was expecting the internet to wink back at me.
STARK INDUSTRIES STOCK HITS NEW HIGH FOLLOWING CEO'S RETURN TO U.S.
"GENIUS, BILLIONAIRE, WEAPONEER": THE UNSTOPPABLE RISE OF TONY STARK.
Okay, so—he's in the public eye. Loudly. Flamboyantly. The human equivalent of leaving caps lock on while drunk-texting the universe. But nothing—nothing—about Iron Man. Not a whisper. Not a "mysterious armored figure seen at weapons test site" or "shiny robot guy punches tank, film at eleven." Nada.
So, he's not there yet. Or he's hiding it really well. Which... doesn't feel like Tony's style.
I clicked deeper, chasing the digital paper trail through articles, interviews, and press releases. His face was everywhere—magazine covers, startup keynotes, gala events where he looked like he was born in a tux and dared the concept of sobriety to a duel. He was just... Tony. Young, rich, obnoxiously brilliant, and aggressively unbothered by anything except his own headlines.
If he'd been kidnapped recently—and the timeline kind of lined up— there was no record of it. No mention of the cave. No murmurs of shrapnel, no arc reactors glowing faintly beneath designer suits. Just more photos of him winking beside missiles the size of school buses, or field-testing drones that made DARPA look like Fisher-Price.
And man, that ego. One article—an actual profile piece in GQ— quoted him saying:
"I'm not saying I'm the smartest guy in the room. I'm just saying it's statistically improbable that I'm not."
Gross. Accurate. But gross.
Still, I couldn't help wondering... had he already built the suit? Was it in a hidden lab somewhere, collecting dust and disdain? Or was he still pretending not to care about what his weapons were doing to the world?
Because that's the thing with Tony. He's not born a hero—he builds his own salvation. With scraps. In a cave. Powered by guilt and sheer manic brilliance.
And if that hasn't happened yet, if he's still just a walking TED Talk with war profiteering on speed dial... then I'm looking at a man who might become one of the greatest heroes of our time—but hasn't even started to walk that road.
It was weird. Seeing him before the burden and sacrifice. Just a young guy with too much money, too little accountability, and no idea that one day, the world would need him.
Captain America didn't pop up with any more promising results.
Well—unless you count conspiracy threads on grainy forums with usernames like "truth4liberty1776" and profile pictures that were either bald eagles or shirtless Rambo edits. The kind of sites that argue fluoride is a mind-control agent and insist Steve Rogers was real, buried somewhere in an iceberg next to Elvis and the Ark of the Covenant.
Spoiler: no Steve.
There were some old World War II articles on the SSR, sure, and vague mentions of Project Rebirth being "decommissioned due to unethical practices," but nothing concrete. No glowing blue serum. No super-soldier program that actually worked.
Just a bunch of whispers. Some historians still argued Rogers was just propaganda, a made-up mascot stitched together from a dozen real soldiers and a thousand wartime fantasies. Even the photos were fuzzy, almost... too perfect. Like they'd been touched up a few too many times, like someone wanted him to look larger than life.
If I didn't know better, I'd say it was probably fake as well.
I close my laptop, and place it beside me. So... Captain America and Iron Man aren't active. If I had to guess, Bruce either hasn't become the Hulk or is lying low.
Norman Osborn is dying, Smythe is the face of Oscorp, Fisk is the Mayor, and Felicia isn't active. Norman's sickness and May's offhand mention of Richard at Oscorp paint a picture that feels oddly familiar —Peter's side of this mess leans way more TASM than MCU.
It gives me a few more names I should look into, but if some of these guys are criminals, looking them up might not be a wise idea.
It's getting late, and I've officially burned myself out from my 'research.' I put everything away and flop down onto the bed.
The clock's not just late—it's practically tapping its foot, calling me out for procrastinating with digital snooping. I shove everything aside and flop onto the bed with the grace of a lead balloon. The ceiling above me doesn't offer answers, just the same quiet that follows a day filled with too many questions.
Sleep's playing hard to get, but eventually, my eyes start to rebel against the glow of screens and endless scrolling. Tomorrow will bring more digging—more puzzles that refuse to stay neatly solved. But for tonight? I'll let the shadows settle and hope the chaos can wait.